


it's a line between head and heart (hold onto reason as it falls apart)

by nikneedsalife



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, M/M, Secret Santa, a secret santa inside a secret santa, keith is TRYING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 09:37:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13245492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikneedsalife/pseuds/nikneedsalife
Summary: This time, when Keith opens up his paper to read the name, dread builds up in his throat. In loopy cursive it reads;Lance.





	it's a line between head and heart (hold onto reason as it falls apart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DJBunn3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJBunn3/gifts).



> Title from PAPER LIONS - [Pull Me In](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FwQ4RabBvs)
> 
> My secret santa fic for [djbunn3 on tumblr](https://djbunn3.tumblr.com)
> 
> Sorry for being a bit late; my initial predicted word count was 3000, and I'm a horrendously slow writer. I based this off the _A gift exchange inside a gift exchange (such as Lance planning a Team Voltron secret Santa and picking Keith/Keith picks him/both)_ idea. Happy holidays and I hope you like it!
> 
> very much unbeta'ed, sorry

  

  The thing is with space; eventually, time forgets to pass. Minutes blend into hours which blend into days which eventually blend into weeks. Despite the Castle syncing up with Earth hours and dimming after- what Keith assumes is probably around- nine at night, it doesn’t help much when they’re brutally woken up at the most deadly hours to go fight a war none of them planned to sign up for. Impromptu naps are so common these days no one bats an eye anymore when they find Pidge, who should major in Nap Skills, strewn across the breakfast table, or a softly snoring Hunk slumped on one of the couches. The point is, time is hectic as a paladin of Voltron. They don’t follow any calendars, and the vast emptiness of space only has one season; cold and deadly. Keith doesn’t even remember how long ago they left Earth; it could be several months, it could be a year. In space, it just doesn’t matter. 

  For Keith, that’s alright. He’s used to the desert. In the desert, the only difference between summer and winter is  _ hot  _ and  _ less hot _ . The day Keith left the Garrison, he broke his dad’s old watch underfoot, smashing the glass to smithereens with the heel of his shoe- angry at the world, angry at his father, angry at  _ Shiro _ . So time is more of a series of numbers to him than a quantifiable amount. In Keith’s old shack, a tattered motorbike-themed calendar hangs nailed to the wall; but he left that behind as well. The lack of daily reminders that today is  _ this-and-this date  _ doesn’t bother Keith as much as it does to the other paladins. In space, Earth time is inconsequential anyway. 

  Which is probably why it comes as such a surprise when Pidge bursts into the kitchen, feet skidding over the slick Castle floors and laptop cradle protectively like a small child. “Look!” Pidge yells and shoves the screen under his nose. Keith startles back and blinks, but before he can get a good look, Matt has already shouldered in, overly curious as to what has Pidge so excited. “Look at  _ this _ !”

  “No way!” Matt says. Keith takes a second to make sense of the little blue numbers over Matt’s bushy hairdo; it’s a calendar. Matt continues; “You know what this means, right?”

  “We have to get everyone together!” If the matching physiques weren’t already proof of their shared Holt genes, Pidge and Matt’s ability to finish! every! word! with! an! exclamation! mark! when excited would be enough. 

  “What’s happening?” Keith asks, confused. 

  “It’s December,” Pidge says, bouncing on the balls of her socked feet (the socks are green and yellow with little robots, Keith notes). “That means there’s enough time for a secret Santa!”

  “A what?” Keith frowns. 

  “Secret Santa.” If there’s one thing Keith loves about the Holts is that they never laugh at him for not knowing stuff that seems like pretty standard knowledge. “It’s this thing where everyone gets assigned someone else’s name and has to make a present for them, but you don’t know who has your name.”

   “I did this once with Hunk and Lance at the Garrison; but we called it Shitty Secret Santa, and you had to get the worst gift possible. Hunk got me a pair of  [ depressing pencils ](https://www.thepresentfinder.co.uk/buy/de-motivational-pencils_2880.htm) . It was great,” Pidge muses, a little wistfully. Something in Keith’s chest pangs. He remembers the Garrison, but it feels like a very long dream. “We should do it again this year! I mean we’d have to explain what it is to Allura and Coran, unless of course, Alteans have an Altean equivalent- Oh! Matt, do you think Alteans have secret Santas?” 

  Matt smiles the same way Pidge does; “We can ask.”

  Keith goes back to his extra-terrestrial cereal. 

 

***

 “So now that we’ve explained all of that; Keith, would you want to do the honors?”

  Keith looks up in surprise to Pidge holding out a battered-looking hat. “What?”

  “Do you want to pick out the first name?” Keith is a little surprised at being chosen first out of all of the paladins, but he supposes since he’s sitting closest, at the far end of the couch. He’d zoned out a bit while Hunk, Pidge, and Matt were attempting to explain the concept of a secret Santa to Allura and Coran (the answer, by the way, was no; Alteans did not celebrate secret Santa and thought it was one of the weirdest Earth practices they’d ever heard of, on the same level as skiing).   

   Keith grabs the first folded-up paper he can get his hands on and opens it. It reads  _ Shiro _ . He breathes out a sigh of relief. Shiro, he knows Shiro, he’ll be able to find something that Shiro likes. Pidge continues along the couch and everyone picks out a name, one by one.

  “You could’ve done this digitally; why the stone-age method of paper?” Lance asks.

  Pidge sniffs. “You heathen. Paper is traditional. Also, I’d totally be able to hack one of your tablets in a moment of weakness and find out who has my name- so better guard that little slip of paper with your life.”

  Lance nods his head in a  _ fair enough  _ gesture and crows when he picks out his slip of paper and sees the name. “ _ Yes! _ ”

  “No hints!” Hunk yells next to him, then reads his. “Aw man. How am I supposed to know what to get?”

  “You can always ask someone that might have more of an idea, but it’s the secret Santa law that no-one can know you asked.”

  “There’s a secret Santa law?”

  “You bet your ass there is.”

  “Matt, I didn’t know the inhabitants of Earth spelled your name with two Ts. It looks very strange?” Coran says the moment he looks up from his piece of paper. 

  Shiro lets out a laugh. Pidge groans. “Everyone, hand in your names. Let’s try this again.”

  This time, when Keith opens up his paper to read the name, dread builds up in his throat. In loopy cursive it reads;  _ Lance _ . 

 

*** 

  The thing is; Keith and Lance don’t hate each other. Keith is sure Lance thought he did in the beginning, but Keith isn’t that oblivious- he knows what jealousy looks like, and Lance is ridiculously competitive. Keith knows he’s a hothead, and that type of behavior riles him up like nothing else. Now, after months of begrudging cooperation, they’ve come to a sort of quiet acceptance. Lance keeps him grounded sometimes when the heat of the fight gets too much and he needs to cool down. In turn, Keith keeps Lance real and serious when he has to be, picks him up when the burden on their shoulders gets too much to bear. They’re not enemies or rivals anymore, but they’re not exactly friends either; Keith doesn’t know how to act around people the way Lance does, and Lance still gets on his nerves when they’re not in mortal danger and lounging on a couch during their free time, or when they’re fighting in the training room and Lance attempts to show off by trying- and failing- to take out a bot Keith was about to beat.   

  Still, there are other things now that weren’t there in the beginning; respect, understanding, and  _ maybe _ a little friendly affection. Lance sometimes slings a long, gangly arm around him, or pats him on the back, or on one memorable occasion, gave him the same quick hug he gave everyone else after a particularly long and grueling battle. It shouldn’t, but it makes Keith smile. It’s nice to have someone other than Shiro care a little, once in a while. 

  But they’re not  _ friends _ , per se. So Keith is pretty much stumped as what to get him. The furthest he’s gotten is  _ something blue _ ; Keith has never been particularly creative. In a fit of frustration in the middle of (what is probably) the night, he ends up making a list. It ends up looking a little like this:

 

_ Things Lance likes : _

  * _Blue_
  * _The color blue_
  * _The ocean_
  * _Earth_
  * _Flirting_
  * _Anything edible that Hunk makes_
  * _Looking cool_



  
  


  When he writes down  _ looking cool _ , Keith realizes he’s never actually had a proper, friendly conversation with Lance before. 

 

***

 

  The castle lights brighten again, announcing it’s morning, and Keith assumes it’s probably wise to go see Pidge about his problem. It’s not that Keith doesn’t like Hunk, but he’s not sure if he could trust him not to accidentally let it slip to Lance that Keith had to go ask for advice. And anyway, Pidge is probably one of his best friends; his conspiracy theorist buddy, both of them loyal, vicious when they need to and able to go to the end of the world for the ones they love. When the doors don’t slide open immediately to let him in, Keith knocks loudly on the metal doors. “Pidge? It’s me?”

  A muffled voice on the other side tells him to give her a second. Keith hears loud rummaging, and then a clang of metal. The doors hiss open. Pidge is sitting on the floor with her laptop next to her, covered in feathers, looking a little flustered. “Heee _ ey, _ ” she says, fakely casual. 

  “There’s a dead bird in your hair,” Keith tells her, deadpan. The chair in the corner creaks when he sits down on the edge.

  “Quiznak,” Pidge hisses, small hands flying up. She plucks out a handful of feathers. “Don’t tell anyone what you saw? It’s a secret Santa thing.”

  “Sure. Listen…” Keith hesitates, suddenly a little nervous. He’s not sure why. “About the secret Santa. I really need your help. What should I get Lance?”

  Pidge blinks. “It’s Lance. Just get him something he likes.”

  Keith fumbles the crumpled list out of his pocket. “This is all I have.” Pidge takes it from him, but her brow furrows a little.

  “You know I’m not supposed to just choose the present for you, right? And this list is fine. Just find him something blue next time we visit a planet with some kind of market.”

   “But-”

   “Keith, it’s fine. Whatever you get him, he’s not going to hate you for it. The guy loves useless alien knickknacks.”

   “Okay,” Keith says, as something eases a little, and Keith realizes that what the tightness in his chest had been about. Keith is afraid of getting Lance something that he’ll hate, some undeniable proof that Keith has no clue what to do with Lance, and that it’ll break this slow, fragile bond between them. “Okay,” he repeats.

 

*** 

 

  Keith is  _ this _ close to punching Lance. It’s nothing personal, okay. But Keith really needs a least half an hour to sneak about the market and inconspicuously find and buy something for him. And Lance seems have decided today is the day he’ll never leave Keith’s side. 

  “Where’s Hunk?” Keith grumbles, tucking his hands under the opposite arms to shield them from the cold. Little white puffs escape from his lips and into the freezing blue air. 

  “Why, getting rid of me so soon?” Lance goads and digs a cloak-covered elbow into his side. “Too high and mighty to be seen with me, obviously. We’re ruining your street cred.” Lance’s taunts used to have a blatant mean edge; now Keith is relieved that there’s nothing but camaraderie and perhaps _ , maybe,  _ a tiny bit of left-over antagonism that keeps Keith feeling like Lance is being genuine with his friendliness. Which is always nice, because Lance is nothing if not a great liar sometimes. 

  “I doubt this planet knows about my street cred or cares. I mean, they’re handing out free weird-looking marshmallows.”

  “Don’t knock ‘em till you’ve tried em,” Lance grins and accepts one from a nearby vendor. It makes a loud popping noise when he chews on it. “This place is like the Christmas fair they had in the city near the Garrison. Hunk and I snuck out a couple of times to go; it was epic. Did you know Iverson almost caught us once, but then he got distracted by this guy dressed as a reindeer and...” Lance continues and Keith zones out a little, shivering from the cold. They’re walking close through the hectic crown of different aliens, pressed together from shoulder to hip and both enveloped in ominous, heavy cloaks that keep anyone from recognizing the armor underneath. Technically, they’re on a precautionary mission because of some tip that the Galra plan on attacking this neutral trading planet. Unofficially, most of them are off buying stuff somewhere in the market for their secret Santas. Keith is pretty sure he just saw Coran entering a shady little corner shop down an even shadier alley, not that he’s surprised. Now if he could  _ just _ shake off Lance to go find something himself-

  “-eith? Hey, Earth to Mullet, you still there?”

  Keith jumps. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You completely zoned out on me, man. You okay?

  Keith hesitates. “Yeah. Just thinking.”

  Lance’s happy grin is, as always, a little blinding to Keith. It lights up his whole face. “I getcha, buddy. My older sister used to be the same, you’d talk to her for a minute and she’d nod along, then once you were done you’d find out she didn’t hear anything at all. Have I ever told you about the time I managed to quote half of my Garrison textbook before she’d realized?” 

  “No?”

  And Lance goes off again. This time Keith pays attention and listens as they wander up and down the market streets, lit up by the warm lights that dangle off each stall. They stop to get the alien version of hot chocolate, except it, tastes like cherries, and sip on it for a while as they hide from the cold. Keith feels warm and happy inside in a way he hasn’t in a while, whether from the drinks, the friendly atmosphere, Lance’s comfortable babbling at his side, or the fact that just for an evening, he can be  _ okay _ . Maybe all of those. 

  Lance entertains him with more stories of his family, Cuba, and his time at the Garrison. When Keith starts to chip in with his own story about getting stuck in a laundromat in the Garrison’s laundry facility, he catches the look of surprise that flits across Lance’s eyes. Keith hesitates.

  “Nah, go on. You never tell us anything, I’m fascinated,” Lance says. Keith flushes a little.

  They pass the time exchanging weird memories (because hell knows they’ve both have a lot of those; they fly giant robot lions, for quiznak’s sake), and it’s actually fun. Keith didn’t know, nor think, it was possible to spend time with Lance and  _ not  _ get pissed off at the insistent ribbing. Keith even starts to like the occasional bickering a little. 

  Things go a little wonky after that, as they always do when you’re a paladin of Voltron. 

  A loud siren starts blaring from somewhere within the city, and Keith and Lance both recognize it as a warning against an incoming attack. The crowd around them starts to panic and scatter. Lance swears loudly over the sound of screams and thumping footfalls. The scent of fear hangs in the air, tearing through the serene atmosphere clouding them.

  “ _ Paladins, _ ” comes Coran’s voice over their earpieces, “ _ get ready to form Voltron! _ ”

  On their desperate run towards the castle, cloaks discarded somewhere far behind and Lance shooting at the most dangerous Galra soldiers while Keith clears the path, Keith catches sight of an abandoned, tipped-over stall with something that would’ve made a fantastic present for Lance.

_ Quiznak _ .

 

***

 

  In the end, it’s alright. It takes them a while to fight off the Galra attack, but all in all, it’s definitely not one of their more difficult battles. Keith even has time to run back into the city while Allura and Coran prepare the castle to leave for their next mission, find the vendor from the stall he saw, and buy Lance’s present. It’s significantly bulky, so Keith covers it with his cloak and hopes Lance doesn’t see him when he sneaks back into the castle. Thankfully, both Lance and Shiro seemed to have gone on their own last minute errands. It makes Keith breathe a sigh of relief.

  The night before everyone is due to give their gifts, Keith panics. What if his present isn’t enough? What if Lance decides he hates it? Keith gets up at what he assumes must be the middle of the night because of the lack of activity and dimmed lights to attack the kitchen. Keith has seen Hunk do this a thousand time; it seems simple. Keith can totally bake something.

  Keith can absolutely not bake something. It’s a disaster. There’s batter all over the floor and he’s pretty sure there can’t be that much flour in cookies. 

  Hunk ends up suddenly stumbling into the kitchen, weary-eyed and sporting a bedhead that could match Allura’s. “Oh, phew,” Hunk mumbles, then makes a sharp 180° and drags his feet back out again. “It’s just you. Thought the kitchen was on fire again.” The air smells acridly of smoke. 

  Keith swallows his pride a little. He obviously has no baking talents.  _ For Lance _ , he thinks. 

  “Hunk?” 

  “Yeah?” Hunk yawns.

  “I need some help.”

   Hunk blinks once, twice, slowly, a little surprised. “Do you know what time it is?”

   “Sort of.”

   “Of course I’ll help you, buddy. Is this a secret Santa thing?  _ Oh _ , did you get Coran? He loves gingerbread, it’s ridiculous.” Hunk’s already rifling through one of the cupboards, pulling out several bowls and a utensil that Keith is pretty sure could double as a torture device. “Did you have anything in mind?”

  “Not really.”

  Hunk pauses. “You gotta give me something to work off here, man.”

  Keith hesitates, then says; “Anything blue.”

  Hunk’s eyes go wide. “ _ Oooh, _ Lance.”

  “I have no idea what he likes,” Keith admits tentatively.

  “You’re in luck, I’ve been baking for this guy for the past four years. If there’s anyone who knows what he likes, it’s me.”

  Keith flushes a little. “Seriously Hunk, thanks.”

  “No problem. That’s what friends are for, right?”

  The word  _ friends _ lodges in Keith’s chest and keeps him warm for the rest of the night as he watches (and gets shooed away when he tries to help) Hunk bake.

 

***

 

  “Pidge.  _ Pidge. _ ”

  “ _ What? _ ” The doors to Pidge’s room hiss open. “It’s ass-crack in the morning, Keith, what the hell.” 

  “I need more help.”

  “Is this about the secret Santa again? Don’t you have enough already?” Pidge groans, and sticks her head back under the pillow with a  _ thwump. _

  “Yeah, but it’s not… enough.”

  “Gah.” 

  “Help?”

  “Sure. Let me wake up first.”

 

***

   Keith is a nervous mess.

  He’s faced off against murderous robots, vicious aliens trying to grab the bounty off his head, the Galra Emperor, Allura with three hours of sleep, and stared death right in the face. Yet this whole gift-giving thing has him stressed out like never before. Keith wants Lance to like his presents, and frankly, he’s terrified of Lance taking one look at it and being incredibly disappointed; or worse, laughing. It doesn’t help that he has no idea what the rest have gotten each other. Perhaps it would’ve helped if he had some sort of bar to measure his gift by because Pidge’s advice can only take him so far. 

  Keith’s gaze flicks around to the wrapped bundles everyone is holding. Wrapping paper had been an interesting thing to explain to someone not accustomed to Earth practices. (“So you hide something in coloured paper for a short amount of time… only to have another person take it off again. Why not just give it directly?” “It’s the feeling, Coran, the feeling.”). They’re all settled in the designated living room, Hunk, Lance and Matt on one couch, nursing some sort of drink, opposite Shiro, Allura, and Coran. Keith and Pidge are lounging on the floor, Pidge covered head-to-toe in blankets. The lights are dimmed and instead, little lights float around the room. If there was a fireplace, it would be burning. The whole atmosphere is very… homey, something unfamiliar to Keith. They’ve been chatting for the past half-hour, talking about the little, nonsensical things that they don’t usually have time for. After this, Pidge will be attempting to teach Allura and Coran (and Keith and Shiro) an improvised version of monopoly. 

  “I’ll go first,” Shiro says. “Coran?”

  Coran ends up getting a several smaller items that Shiro has seemed to have procured from alien shops around the universe that sell useless trinkets from different planets; included are a Rubix cube, a slinky, and a mustache comb Shiro had magically found somewhere. Lance chokes on his drink when Shiro explains what it is with the straightest face Keith has ever seen him pull. 

  They go around the room, one by one. Pidge gets Allura a fluffy pink boa, hence the feathers, that she proclaims to be popular Earth fashion and Allura is fantastically delighted by it. She wears it all night. Hunk, on the other hand, goes for a more straightforward approach and gives Shiro a noise-canceling headset, together with a playlist of music he’d scrounged off Lance’s old, battered mp3-player that followed Shiro’s taste (helpfully advised by Keith during the baking). 

  Eventually, once they get to Matt (who gives Pidge a USB stick. Pidge opens up the contents on her laptop and bursts out laughing. They give no explanation), Keith realizes that no one has given him, nor Lance, their gifts yet. Which means, considering they’re the only two left; Lance is not only his giftee but also his gifter. Lance seems to have figured out the same thing because he keeps on shooting Keith sly looks out of the corner of his eye.

  Lance coughs, then slowly hands his bundle to Keith. “Here you go then, I guess.” 

  Keith grabs it with both hands, surprised at the lack of weight compared to the size. It’s soft and squishy, Keith can feel, and the wrapping paper is difficult to tear carefully like Keith had planned to because frankly, it’s a mess. Yet Keith’s goading about Lance’s inability to wrap something dies in his throat when he finally does manage to tear open a part of it and comes face to face with-

  It’s a plush red lion. Two shiny beads are sown in for the eyes, so yellow they almost glow, and the paws are covered with some type of fabric that’s silky to the touch. The short limbs flop around when he picks it up. It’s adorable and Keith is filled with an instinctive urge to protect it, despite it not even being a sentient being. 

 The nervous tightness in his stomach transforms into heavy disappointment. Keith suddenly feels like leaving the room.

  Keith stands up, red lion held in his arms. Lance’s present tumbles away from his legs. 

  “Keith? Buddy?” Lance’s voice is worried.

  Why is he so upset? It’s just a present, isn’t it? It shouldn’t matter that much what Lance thinks of it.

  “Open it,” Keith manages to bring out.

  Hesitantly, Lance reaches over the grab the fallen parcel under everyone’s watchful eyes. As he tears at the paper, Keith wonders why he’s so upset about this. Why does it even matter, it’s not like Lance will hate him for it, call him a copycat. Even then, Keith doesn’t care-

  Oh.  _ Oh.  _

_   He does.  _ He cares a lot. 

  “Keith-”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I love it!”

   Keith looks up, surprised. “What? You don’t mind?” 

  “Nah man, absolutely not. Great minds think alike.” Lance is grinning, an identical version of Keith’s lion- but in a bright, vivid  _ blue _ \- pressed to his chest.

_ Relief _ . “Are you implying I have a great mind?” 

  “Apparently.” Lance grins and shakes the lion at him. “When did you even have time to buy this little buddy?  _ I  _ barely made it back to the castle on time after the attack.”

  “Right before you, I guess. I saw it pretty last minute.”

  “Me too.”

  “Didn’t help that you wouldn’t leave me alone before that, anyway.”

  Lance snorts unattractively. “Yeah, sorry ‘about that. I was doing some investigating on what to get you. You’re hella hard to read, you know. Had to ask Shiro and everything. He told me  _ knives _ .”

  Keith glares at Shiro. “Knives?” 

  Shiro shrugs. “You like weaponry, we all know that. It was either that or  _ fast vehicles _ .”

  “I also had the color red, and anything that puts you in mortal danger. But I didn’t think that last one would make much of a gift, sorry.” 

  “I made a list,” Keith tells him, “it had  _ looking cool _ on it.”

  Lance laughs. “True enough.”

  “There’s also food in there. Hunk helped me with that.” 

  Behind him, Hunk laughs as well. “Help is a big word. Keith almost managed to burn  _ water _ .”

  “It’s the thought that counts.” Keith points towards the bundle of wrapping paper. “There’s also something else. Pidge helped me with that one.” 

  Lance grabs the bundle once more and rummages into it. He pulls out the fresh cookies (Also blue. Hunk had assured him they tasted like mint), and-

  “ _ Keith _ .” Lance’s voice is filled with emotion.

   “I hope it isn’t too much. I just remembered you talking a lot about your family at the market and that you really love them so it would be nice if you had a physical picture.” Keith shuffles a little on the floor, uncomfortable with the surprised glances everyone gives him. 

  Lance is choked up. “You’re making the rest of us look bad for effort and thoughtfulness, dude.” Keith doesn’t know the faces in the picture, obviously taken in someone’s living room, but they’re all crowded together and all of them are smiling (except for the small child tucked the arm of a younger- almost baby-faced- Lance, who got caught mid-yawn). 

  “Pidge did most of the work on this one. She managed to connect to Earth servers and track down a picture. I only framed it.” Keith shrugs.

  “Thank you.” Lance is looking at him with bright new eyes, like he’s never seen Keith properly before.

  Keith’s heart stutters.

*** 

 

  Years later, Lance will tell Keith that was the moment he started falling in love.


End file.
